Gary found himself flying through the air. Then it was his turn. “You OK with this?” he asked thinking she was so slender she surely would be easily hurt.
She grinned at him. “Sure, do your worst, Gar’.” He heaved her over his right hip, dismayed when she landed with a loud thump.
Millie’s eyes narrowed as she watched. Raquel lands perfectly, but she slaps her hand down very hard. It is as if she wants to make it seem like she is coming down harder than she really is, Millie thought. After a moment she shrugged, no rule against that.
***
Bemused, Ennis said, “She did what?”
Axen said, “Fixed nine bugs in the flight control software. I only knew about four of them. Issues where we’ve ‘worked around’ a problem for so long that no one really thinks about them as bugs anymore. But it turns out that part of the problem with crosswind takeoffs has been a software bug that has a feedback loop in it that doesn’t damp aileron control properly. Now I can easily get the simulator’s AI to take off in crosswinds above tolerance. We’ll have to try it on a real bird to see if it works outside of software, but she says it will… and I believe her.” He snorted, “She did all this during lecture time over a period of three days. All while, of course, answering any questions the instructor posed to her in class while she was working on the software and still scoring higher by far than her classmates on both the tests and the simulated flights.”
Ennis leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling. “Damn,” he mused quietly, “I wonder what else we could get her to fix?”
***
Ell looked at the drop of water under the microscope on her experimental setup. It still had that very faint blue appearance but it didn’t seem any bluer than it had the day before. Allan confirmed that its chroma hadn’t changed. Her shoulders sagged and she began disassembling the setup. As she took the cover off the electronics her nose suddenly twitched at the smell of something burned. Yes! The power supply had a blackened spot on it. She leaned back, musing. Could the power requirement for a molecular sized hole be higher than she had calculated? Or was it just a bad power supply?
Amy came in the room behind her, “Time to go out and celebrate?”
Morosely, Ell said, “No!”
Amy took in the slumped shoulders and the screws and covers lying on the table. Ell had been pretty frustrated about her research before the recent breakthrough. She hated to see her down again. “OK. It’s time to go out for some Friday night R and R then.”
Ell cast a squinty eye back up over her shoulder at Amy. “I don’t feel like going out.”
“How would you know, you never go out! My assessment is that you’re a girl in serious need of a social life.”
Ell hunched her shoulders sulkily and peered back down at the power supply, thinking that she did miss her Friday nights at West 87. “What did you have in mind?” she asked without looking up.
“My favorite local band is playing at “Tres Locos” and, thanks to a kindly employer, I can afford a babysitter again!”
Ell scratched at the charred area on the power supply. “I don’t have anything to wear!”
“Yes you do, I’d suggest those snug Western jeans and boots of yours.”
Ell frowned, “I don’t have Western jeans or boots.”
“Yes you do. Move away from the machine Ma’am, nothing to see there. Look at this instead.”
Ell slowly looked around, Amy grinned as she held up jeans in one hand and boots in the other. Ell frowned, “Do you think your clothes will fit me?”
“You’d better not say that my clothes would be baggy on you! I bought these for you, they’re a size 2 like the rest of your pants.”
“Hmmm,” Ell arched an eyebrow, “did I authorize clothing expenditures?”
“Yep.” Amy grinned, “It’s right there under ‘whatever you need to buy to keep me happy.’”
“Humpf, OK. I guess I could use some socializing, what time do we leave?”
“As soon as you’re ready, Tres Locos has great Mexican food too.”
“OK,” she glanced upward, “Allan, order a replacement power supply train, see if you can boost all the tolerances by 100%.”
Ell spent some time doing the Raquel Blandon look in full. The wig, skin bronzer, darker makeup, pencil to cover her light eyebrows, a beauty mark on her cheek and her nose prosthetic. She didn’t look anything like Ell when she was done but the nose prosthetic wasn’t big enough to make her truly unattractive like her old “Ellen” prosthetic had.
Tres Locos turned out to be laid out in a very large space with a band on a stage at one end and a large dance floor around the band which was itself surrounded by tables. There were various stalls around the walls of the huge room selling food, drink and mementoes. Amy got a beer and tacos, while Ell picked out a grande burrito and a Coke.
Cody watched the slender brunette with the long legs walk around Tres Locos choosing her food and then walk with her friend over to a table. She moved smoothly with a fluid grace. He thought to himself, that girl’s a dancer.
Ell pulled out a chair at a table but Amy said, “Oh, no! We’ve got to sit near the dance floor,” she raised an eyebrow, “so the boys’ll know we want to dance.”
“We do?” Ell asked, not sure whether she queried the table location, or their desire to dance. She’d only danced a few times in her life, and those times were slow dances with people she knew pretty well. She really didn’t feel like she knew how to dance.
“We do.” Amy responded definitively, without making it clear whether she spoke of the location or the dancing either.
While they ate their Mexican food a band warmed up on the stage, then began playing. The music was fast, bluesy and pleasant. Ell found her foot tapping to the beat. Out on the dance floor a few people wandered out and begun dancing in a variety of styles. A small group of five was doing some kind of line dance. One couple whirled around the floor and several other couples seemed to be freestyling whatever movements they felt like to the beat. She wondered what in the world she would do should a man actually come and ask her to dance? She would be terribly embarrassed if he expected to whirl around the floor like that one couple—Ell had no idea how to do such a dance.
Ell had wolfed her burrito down and sat entranced, watching the dance floor. When Amy finished her tacos, she cleared the food off their table and carried it to a bin. Returning she saw a handsome young man bend down near Ell and ask her something. Ell drew back, looking panicked and shaking her head. The young man stood, shrugged and moved on. Amy sat back down and said over the music, “What just happened there?”
“He wanted to dance!” Ell said in astonishment.
Well, of course he did. This is a dance place. You’re sitting near the dance floor. Why aren’t you out there dancing with him right now?”
Ell looked stricken, “I don’t know how!”
Amy laughed, “Well then, just tell the young man that he’ll need to teach you. He would have loved that.”
“He would not!”
“Ell, Ell, Ell. He would much rather have taught you to dance than have been ‘shot down’ asking you to dance.” Amy leaned closer, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Most of these guys don’t really know how to dance either. They’re just here to meet girls.” She leaned back and raised her eyebrows as if she had just revealed a shocking secret. “Especially pretty ones like you.”
Ell looked embarrassed again. “I hadn’t thought of how it would seem to him if I said ‘no.’ I’m sorry.”
“Well don’t tell me you’re sorry, go tell the guy. He’s standing over there with his buddy trying to pretend his feelings aren’t hurt.”
Ell buried her face in her hands, “Oh, I can’t do that!”
Amy thought she saw a blush leaking out around Ell’s hands despite her skin bronzer. “Hah! Momma Amy’s gonna to take care of you. First, we’re going to go join that line dance, then later you can apologize to the guy tha
t asked you to dance.” She tugged on Ell’s arm until she got up and they walked across the floor to the small group of line dancers. They were now seven in number.
Ell found herself at the end of one of the lines. The group had three men and, with Ell and Amy, six women. The steps they were making looked complicated but actually were relatively simple and repetitive so Ell, with her phenomenal mind-body coordination, quickly learned them and danced along. Then she noticed the more accomplished girls putting extra twitches and shimmies into their routines which Ell copied too. Amy, still struggling to get the steps right, shouted over at her, “I thought you didn’t know how to dance?”
Embarrassed, Ell shrugged, “I learn pretty quickly.” Looking out over the dance floor she saw the dark haired guy who’d asked her to dance whirling around the floor with another woman. They were doing a very complex swing dance that involved whirling and spinning, all the while keeping their hands in contact with one another. He even whirled the girl into the air once. It looked like a lot of fun and since Ell’s mind wasn’t really on what she was doing in the line dance she focused on exactly what the swing dancing couple did.
The music slowed and the line dancers broke up to sit. Ell noticed that the young man took his dance partner back to her seat and went back to where his friend still stood. She walked back to her own table with Amy who said, “Now it’s time to apologize to that guy you ‘shot down’ and ask him to dance.”
Ell stuck out her lower lip and lowered her head, “Don’ wanna!” Then she looked up and her eyes crinkled as she said, “But I will if you insist.”
“Yep, ‘Momma Amy’ says it’s the polite thing to do.”
Ell stood started walking towards the man, her heart in her throat. When she was about half way there his blond friend nudged him and pointed her out with his beer bottle. They both turned to watch her approach. The dark haired one lifted one eyebrow as she got close. Ell stopped in front of them and found herself momentarily unable to speak. Finally, she choked out, “My friend Amy,” with a thumb she pointed back over her shoulder, “says it was rude of me to turn down a dance. So, I’ve come to apologize and ask if you would dance with me after all?” She smiled tentatively at him.
Cody’d admired her walking towards him, hoping that she’d changed her mind about dancing. Girls often came up to him wanting to dance after they’d seen him dance with Connie. Connie and he studied dance together at UNLV and liked going out to bars to “slum with the ordinary dancers” as they called it. It was fun to dance with regular folks who struggled to keep up, then occasionally throw in a dance with Connie to show them what real dance was all about. With a serious look on his face he said, “No.”
Ell’s face fell and she turned, red faced, to make a walk of shame back to her seat.
He said, “Wait! I was kidding! I just wanted you to feel all ‘turned down’ like I did. Of course I’d dance with you. I’d love to.”
Ell turned back and flashed him a blinding smile. “Thanks!” She tilted her head. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Naw, you didn’t. I was being a jerk. My name’s Cody, what’s yours?” He studied her surprisingly pretty face.
“E… Raquel, I really don’t know how to dance. That’s why I turned you down earlier. Would you teach me?”
“Hah! I saw you line dancing, you’ve got some nice moves.”
“But I don’t know how to do anything else.”
He shrugged, “Sure, all you’ve gotta do is follow. Keep your elbows bent ninety degrees so I can push and pull on you and then I’ll just sweep you around the floor like a broom.”
Ell widened her eyes, “Oh, could you? That’s just what I was hoping for.” her eyes rolled.
He grinned, “Ah, a spunky one!” They reached the floor as a slow song finished and another fast one started. His left hand took her right and he started a gentle push pull with the beat which she immediately picked up. His right hand pointed down at his feet, indicating the simple shuffle he was doing to keep time. Cody’s brows rose as she immediately picked up the step he was doing and shuffled an exact reciprocal to his.
Ell looked up at Cody and was pleased that he didn’t look too bored. Delightedly she saw Amy walking out to the dance floor with Cody’s older blond friend. Cody took her left hand and, with a quick pull of his left, twirled her to “cuddle” in his right arm. Smoothly, he began moving her around the floor, their hips swinging slightly together. He twirled her out, then back in to cuddle in his left arm. Her eyebrows rose, this looked hard, but the moves she’d watched him do with the other girl were actually pretty easy. She thought to herself that it must be Cody’s strong lead that made it that way.
Cody’s eyebrows drew together, she’d lied! She did know how to dance! Normally, when dancing with someone new, even if they “knew how to dance,” he had to show them each move several times, whereas this girl just effortlessly followed his lead on every move he threw at her! He decided to push her limits. He spun her out and back in, then turned himself to the inside, then began more and more complex turns and twirls.
Ell followed easily. She’d seen each of the moves he was taking her through when he’d been dancing with Connie. She found them simple enough to copy with Cody strongly pulling her through each of the different turns.
Mixed emotions of irritation that she’d fooled him and pure joy at how well she danced flooded over Cody. He decided to push her as hard as he could.
Ell found the effortless swinging rhythm of the dancing and turning to be exhilarating, though she knew her poor endurance would leave her exhausted if they kept up this pace! She hoped to herself that Cody didn’t have any moves that she hadn’t gotten to watch him do with the other girl.
Suddenly, Cody doubled timed his footwork. Ell matched him and then he double timed the speed of the turns, pulling her through the twirling movements rapid fire. Ell found it breathtaking. Having already danced the moves with him at the lower speed, they were easy to follow, even at the much increased speed. She thumped in against his side, then whirled away, then back in, then spun, then began going under and over in a spinning flashing pretzel turn that went on and on.
He spun her away from him and began dancing solo, feet pounding and hands clapping occasionally. Ell matched him, throwing in her own shimmies and twirls from the line dance earlier. In sudden exuberance Ell did a backflip as the music thundered to a stop.
Ell clapped a hand to her mouth. The other dancers had all stopped to watch them, people at the tables were standing to get a better view, the band stared and the fiddler waved his bow at them. Cody threw a leg and arm out in a theatrical bow to her. In embarrassment, Ell realized that, in the elation of that dance, she had tremendously over performed. Hands to her cheeks, Ell turned and ran from the floor, shouldering through the crowd and fast-walking to the bathroom.
Hiding in a stall with her feet up, Ell heard Amy calling her name. “Ell, where are you?”
“Here,” she said faintly.
“Why’d you run off the floor?” Amy asked, pulling on the door to the stall.
Ell unlatched it to let her in. “Embarrassed. I shouldn’t have danced like that!”
“What do you mean? Why not! Not that I had any idea you could, of course. I thought you said you didn’t know how to dance.”
“I don’t! It’s just that Cody leads so well.”
Amy snorted, “Girl, I guarantee, no matter how well a man leads, I would never ever be able to dance like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty good at athletics and pick stuff up really quick. But performing like that doesn’t exactly help me fade into the woodwork like I’m supposed to.”
Amy tilted her head, “Huh… I guess you’d have to be ‘pretty good at athletics’ to win all those Olympic gold medals. But you’re embarrassed about that dance?”
Ell bit her lip and nodded.
Amy grinned, “Sometimes I forget that you’re only eighteen. I’d still be out there taking bows if I’d da
nced like that. Well what do you think, are you ready to go back out and face the world?”
“Can’t we just sneak out and go home?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Come on, I guarantee all those folks think they just witnessed something cool, done by someone who’d practiced forever. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” She held out her hand.
Reluctantly Ell took it and they headed back out into Tres Locos. As they stepped out of the women’s bathroom, Cody hitched up away from the wall where he’d been leaning. “Raquel, are you OK?”
Ell nodded, though she kept her eyes on the floor and her cheeks heated again. She wondered to herself why she felt so awkward in situations like this. Her training from the Academy stood her in good stead when dealing with people in her usual circumstances. She could handle her superiors and subordinates in the Air Force. But when the situation called for her to interact with strange men in what might become a romantic encounter she got all shy and started acting crazy.
Cody said, “I’m not sure what just happened there? You sure fooled me with that, ‘don’t know how to dance line though.’ Where did you learn to dance?”
Ell said something but he couldn’t hear it over the music. He leaned closer, “What?”
Ell said, “I’m a gymnast. I really don’t know much about dance, but I can follow pretty well.” She hoped that would satisfy him.
“You can’t fool me.” Cody said with some exasperation, “I study dance at UNLV and I have never danced with someone who could follow like you. The way you were able to pick up on everything I did, it, it was like we’d been dancing together for months!”
Ell didn’t say anything and after a long pause Cody said, “Can we dance again?”
Suddenly Connie showed up on Cody’s other side. “Come on Cody; let’s show your little friend how it’s really done.” She tugged at his elbow. Connie had been stunned at the graceful style that the slender brunette had displayed while dancing with Cody and then shocked and hurt at the way everyone stared at them. The crowd hadn’t even paused to watch Connie dance with Cody earlier. She’d realized that Cody and the girl hadn’t done anything really hard, they’d just done it very well. Connie wanted to show everyone in the bar what she and Cody could really do.
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